Pageant commemorates 1864 Burning of Chambersburg

The Confederate troops burn the courthouse during the Burning of Chambersburg on Saturday. (Ryan Blackwell — Public Opinion)

The cast of the Burning of Chambersburg pageant leads the Pledge of Allegiance on Saturday. (Ryan Blackwell — Public Opinion)

CHAMBERSBURG &GT;&GT; The Saturday commemoration of the 150th anniversary of the burning of the Borough of Chambersburg got off under gray skies, the entire pageant teased with spitting rain on candy-colored umbrellas set off by the theatrical smoke, flames and crash of artillery.

The Chambersburg Diamond (as it was known before "Memorial Square") teemed with spectators as locals and visitors packed the area around the county courthouse to witness the annual dramatization that both put the town on the map and nearly obliterated it.

John Shindledecker, who portrayed town leader and attorney J. McDowell Sharp, said a new sound effects company was behind the clarity and volume of the cannon fire that had some audience members jumping out of their skin, and special effects that sounded like thousands of cavalry riding through town, though only a few actual horses were present.

The story behind the evening's events is well known to locals.

Local actors and historians demonstrated how Confederate troops filled the town led by their commander, Gen. John "Tiger" McCausland, portrayed sternly by David Shuey and re-enactment units, who demanded $100,000 in gold or $500,000 in Union money as ransom, under the threat of burning the town. The town's leadership refused to pay, in part out of disdain for the ragtag rebels and partly because they had no money, or so they claimed.

McCausland was under orders from Gen. Jubal Early, who was fed up with the destruction of private homes and farms in the Shenandoah Valley and determined to bring some of that agony to the North. The ransom unpaid, McCausland torched the town, and then rode away, more or less into historic oblivion.

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Chambersburg's people, however, resisted oblivion. Hardly had the flames died when the citizens began saving what building materials they could from the rubble and started to rebuild.

Franklin County took a lot of hits during the American Civil War. It was the site of more Confederate incursions than any place else in the Union. Units of various Confederate forces invaded the county during 1862, 1863, and 1864, culminating in the near-total destruction of the town on July 30, 1864, almost exactly a year after the Southerners' trouncing at Gettysburg, just on the other side of South Mountain.

James Sacrey, of Chambersburg represents the Confederates before the Burning of Chambersburg on Saturday. (Ryan Blackwell — Public Opinion)

McCausland and Early both stated at various times that they doubted the townspeople were that short of money, partly because there was at least one National Bank in the town, and the money could be had.

McCausland also believed that the residents were stalling for time, because there was Union cavalry in the Greencastle area and both groups believed or hoped that a rescue was imminent.

A fair piece of the town burned, with the loss of more than 570 buildings in 12 square blocks. About 2,000 residents were homeless. Some left town; some never came back.

Historian Keven M. Walker, CEO of the Shenandoah Valley Battledfields Foundation, stood on the courthouse steps, recreating storekeeper Jacob Hoke. He told tales from the fire, as he has done at earlier re-enactments.

This one he jazzed up a bit, because of it being the 150th anniversary.

He gestured to the crowd gathered under their umbrellas, clasping their bottled water and smart phone cameras.

"You," he said in a thick Germanic accent. "You have forgotten the flames of Chambersburg. It is still going on today, but not on your streets, but in some foreign nation. God forgive you for forgetting ..."

After the program, he explained that he thought the special anniversary required a little more forceful message.

"This is not an end. It's just in the past. It defines what and who we are today, and what we will be in the future," he said.

In his character, Jacob Hoke, he said: "Who we were is who you are today."

"I think we need to remember," he said. "Other countries are going through the same agonies today that we went through here 150 years ago."

Hoke was no made-up character, Walker explained at the 2013 re-enactment.

"He was a local store owner, and was present for the entire event," said Walker. "He wrote very clear and detailed memoirs about the burning. Much of what we know about the events of that day came to us through him."

Musical interlude

Musicians Greg Hernandez, a fife-player from Bowling Green, Ohio, and Will Donaldson of Mercersburg played for the crowd from atop the courthouse steps for 20 minutes or so before the "Burning of Chambersburg" pageant launched.

They played some tunes off the tops of their heads, others by request. They played "Dixie" twice, along with "The Battle Hymn of the Republic," "Londonderry Aire," "Johnny Comes Marching Home," and other tunes.

In a brief interview after the set, Hernandez was asked who the fellow on the fiddle was.

"I have no idea," he said, laughing. "I'd never met him before."

Hernandez, 68, has been playing a fife since he was about 5, he said. Will Donaldson, 69, had found his grandfather's fiddle in his attic some years back, and then about 10 years ago he watched Ken Burns' Civil War documentary, which featured a fiddle tune called "Ashokan Farewell."

"That inspired me," he said. "I'm self-taught."

Retirement

West Virginia resident Al Stone, 70, who has portrayed Confederate Gen. Robert E. Lee since 1995, bade a fond farewell to his Chambersburg fans at the beginning of the ChambersFest activities Saturday night. The farewell came at the end of a presentation and Q&A session on Civil War matters. In an earlier interview with the Public Opinion, Stone said his last "official" act as the legendary commander would be a recreation of Lee's surrender at Appomattox in April of next year.